Florida Rep. Ted Yoho Calls Tanning Tax "Racist"

North Florida Republican Rep. Ted Yoho, a Tea Party favorite, was caught on tape last week at a town-hall meeting in Gainesville claiming the tanning tax created by the Affordable Care Act is "racist." He then claimed that because he went to a tanning salon twice, he has now been "disenfranchised." The next time he's on his way to get his buns burned, he might want to swing by a library and check out the definitions of the words "racist" and "disenfranchised."

Yoho's comments were caught by Right Wing Watch:

I had a little fun with [John] Boehner and told him about the suntanning tax. He goes, 'I didn't know it was in there,' and I said, 'Yes, it's a 10 percent tax.' He goes, 'Well, that's not that big of a deal.' I said, 'It's a racist tax.' He goes, 'You know what? It is.' I had an Indian doctor in our office the other day, very dark skin, with two non-dark-skinned people, and I asked this to him, I said, 'Have you ever been to a tanning booth?' and he goes, 'No, no need.' So therefore it's a racist tax, and I thought I might need to get to a suntanning booth so I can come out and say I've been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin. As crazy as that sounds, that's what the left does, right? By God, if it works for them, it'll work for us [inaudible].

This isn't the first time a Republican has called the tax "racist," but at least Yoho admits that calling the tax racist sounds "crazy." (Though it seems like the crowd that was cheering on his assertion earlier that the tax was "racist" didn't think it sounded so "crazy.") He's trying to claim that all claims of societal racism and actual disenfranchisement from the left sound just as a "crazy."

Tanning is proven to lead to skin cancer. The government has a long history of uncontroversially taxing things considered bad for you. And even if tanning were as good for you as an apple a day, no one would be marginalized or have their right to vote taken away because they had to pay 10 percent extra to avoid tan lines. And we highly doubt that this will in any way lead to the societal oppression of white people.